Trump Suggests Again the Military Could Build a Border Wall
Afterwards pledging non to build up Trump's border wall, Biden's intentions remain unclear
Landowners at the border are getting mixed letters equally a political storm brews.
For years, Nora Garza and her husband Delfino have fought with the Justice Department and Army Corps of Engineers over 30 acres of country near the U.S.-United mexican states border in Rio Grande City, Texas -- a parcel sought by the Trump administration for construction of the border wall.
But they stopped hearing from the government "right before the election," Garza told ABC News.
Later running for office vowing not to build "another foot" of Donald Trump'southward wall, President Joe Biden signed an order on Inauguration Day ending the national emergency at the border and launching a 60-solar day review of the projection, pausing all construction and calling for a program to redirect unspent funds.
Almost a month afterward that 60-day marker, the wall'southward hereafter remains in limbo and the review continues, co-ordinate to a White House official, as the Biden assistants struggles to address competing pressures over Trump's signature projection meant to prevent the very flow of illegal migration Biden is now working to contain. The issue, together with Biden'south recent wavering on the number of refugees allowed into the United States, is another example of the administration'south ongoing struggle to chart its immigration policies.
"The 60-mean solar day window has come up and gone," said Luke Ellis, a Texas attorney representing border landowners in court. "The most contempo update we accept from the lawyers for the government ... is that they still don't know what is going to happen."
Mixed messages
From Arizona to Texas, structure on sections of the border wall continued up until Biden took office on Jan. 20. In some places, materials and equipment were abased abruptly. Isolated 30-foot steel bollards stand on the edge in betwixt large gaps in the wall, equally ABC News recently saw on reporting trips to the border in southern Texas.
The Biden administration froze all ongoing work in its review, and has sought to tiresome legal proceedings in court, where, in Texas, at that place are more than 140 active eminent domain cases, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project.
"The President has been very clear on the tape that he's committed to no longer confiscating land," said Laura Peña, an chaser with the nonprofit group, which has called on Biden to keep his entrada pledge to "withdraw" the lawsuits and return belongings to landowners. "From our perspective, this has felt like a major betrayal."
Final week, a approximate allowed the government to seize vi acres of land from the Cavazos family, in Mission, Texas, property on the Rio Grande River the family has rented out to tenants for decades.
Jose "Fred" Cavazos, a 71-year-one-time fellow member of the family, told ABC News he is disappointed past the judge's ruling, and the Biden administration'due south continued pursuit of his land.
"Information technology's like he'due south making a U-plough," Cavazos said of Biden. "Why say 'no more walls' if he doesn't mean information technology?"
A Justice Department official told ABC News the Biden administration has moved to delay the court cases started under the previous assistants for the duration of the ongoing review, and that the motility for possession granted final week was filed in 2020, not by the Biden administration.
"DOJ sought continuances in awaiting cases, including in this case, in which the authorities had previously filed motions for possession of land on the southwest edge, in light of President Biden's Proclamation terminating the national emergency at the southern edge of the United States and directing 'a careful review of all resource appropriated or redirected to construct a southern border wall,'" the official said.
Adding to the mixed messages to landowners, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently told bureau employees that construction may resume to plug some of the "gaps" forth the wall, according to the Washington Times. Agency spokespeople did not respond to questions almost the secretarial assistant's reported comments and about areas where construction is continuing.
White Firm press secretarial assistant Jen Psaki recently distanced the president from the project simply did not affirm Biden's entrada trail promise.
"There are some components of the wall that had already been allocated, the funding, to keep building by Congress. And so we are working within what is allowable, but our focus is not -- we exercise not believe the wall is in answer," Psaki told ABC News Primary White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega.
"There is some express construction that has been funded and allocated for, simply it is otherwise paused," Psaki said.
Biden'due south kickoff upkeep proposal to Congress requested "no boosted funding" for the wall and asked lawmakers to cancel any unspent funds at the end of 2021.
Political fight
With a growing number of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. from the southwest border, some Democrats desire Biden to tear Trump's wall down, while others suggest that he should at least complete some of the unfinished work -- leaving the Biden administration in a hard situation as it seeks to focus on the COVID-19 response and Biden's major infrastructure plan push on Capitol Hill.
Republicans have seized on the rising number of migrants seeking aviary at the U.Due south.-Mexico border and the scenes of overcrowded government processing centers to criticize Biden's approach to immigration -- and button back on his edge wall pledge.
Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., who visited the border in southern Texas with 17 other GOP colleagues, told ABC News that border security officials told lawmakers migrants were taking advantage of the gaps in the wall around the McAllen, Texas expanse.
Senate Republicans have called on the Authorities Accountability Role to assess whether the Biden administration violated the Impoundment Control Human action - a 1974 law at the heart of the kickoff impeachment case against Trump, that limits a president's ability to withhold funds.
While Democrats and Republicans agree Biden can redirect billions Trump diverted from the Pentagon to fund the projection, Republicans argue that unspent wall funds approved past Congress tin can merely be used for their original purpose.
A spokesperson for the White Firm Office of Management and Upkeep said Biden's actions were consistent with appropriations police force.
Push button to carelessness the wall
With little clarity as to the status of the wall or timetable for an announcement, Democrats and activists are intent on keeping Biden to his campaign commitment to finish construction.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., a leading House progressive, has called on Biden to tear down the unabridged project.
"The wall is a monument of xenophobia and hatred that does zilch to address the root causes of migration and asylum claims -- violence and unrest in the countries of origin that the United States has frequently exacerbated," Omar, a former refugee from Somalia, said in a statement.
On the other side of the party, edge Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, said Biden should determine whether to tear down or continue building portions of the wall on a "case-by-instance footing."
He said the administration should redirect wall funds to applied science and other edge infrastructure and warned that Democrats could be punished past voters in the 2022 midterms for not taking a tougher position on edge security in low-cal of the migrant crisis and ongoing GOP attacks.
More than 172,000 migrants were taken into government custody at the southwest border in March, co-ordinate to Community and Border Protection, the largest single-calendar month total in near ii decades.
Garza, the vineyard owner whose husband'southward family unit has endemic their packet of land for hundreds of years, called on the Biden administration to stop the wall project and return country that had already been seized.
"They should just terminate and desist. No more walls. People are going to get over it anyhow. You've seen them driblet the babies," she said.
Regardless of what Biden decides to do with the wall, Ellis, the Texas chaser representing landowners in courtroom, anticipated that it would take "quite a while" for his administration to disentangle itself from Trump's wall.
"It's not every bit like shooting fish in a barrel as the government saying we're picking up stakes, we're done," he said. "In that location will still exist more litigation over some of the negative consequences of what they've done to belongings owners."
ABC News' Quinn Owen and Luke Barr contributed to this report.
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Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pledging-build-trumps-border-wall-bidens-intentions-remain/story?id=76928099
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